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Free Will Astrology
horoscopes for week of March 4, 2010

Aries (March 21-April 19)

To place yourself in smooth alignment with planetary rhythms, do conscientious work on the foundations of your life. Take extra care of the people who take care of you. Make sure you have a good supply of the various resources that keep you strong and steady. Check to see if maybe you need to rev up your emotional connection with the traditions you hold dear. But that's only half your horoscope, Aries. Here's the rest: Invite your most rambunctious playmates over for a raucous home-blessing ceremony.

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While putting on your shirt or blouse some morning, fasten the top button in the second hole, the second button in the third hole, and so on all the way down. For the rest of the day, preserve this dishevelment with all your composure intact, even in the face of odd stares and snide comments. If anyone says, "Hey, your shirt's buttoned wrong," reply calmly, "No, it isn't. I buttoned it this way on purpose."
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Two-thirds of people surveyed said they would rather look good than feel good. I hope you're not one of them. The ironic fact of the matter is that if you put the emphasis on looking good in the coming week -- creating favorable impressions, acting dishonest in order to curry favor, wearing uncomfortable but attractive clothes -- you will end up feeling sub-par and looking mediocre. On the other hand, if you put the priority on feeling good -- treating your body like a beloved pet, seeking out encounters that nurture your secret self, and hanging out in environments that encourage you to relax -- you will look good and feel good.

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Mythology is replete with tales of substances that can be both curative or harmful, depending on how they are obtained and used. The ancient Greeks believed that Asclepius, founder of medicine, possessed vials of Medusa's blood. "With what had been drawn from the veins of her left side," Robert Graves notes, "he could raise the dead; with what had been drawn from her right side, he could destroy instantly."

What has been a comparable substance or influence in your own life?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

If you're bogged down in the trance of the humdrum routine, astrology can open your mind and illuminate fascinating patterns that have been invisible to you. It can reveal the big picture of your life story, sweeping away the narrow ideas and shrunken expectations you have about yourself. And it can purge your imagination of its endless tape loops, awakening you to the power you have to create your own destiny. But reliance on horoscopes can also have downsides. If you're superstitious, it might make you even more so. If you're prone to be passive, believing that life is something that happens to you, it might further diminish your willpower. That's why, as much as I love astrology, I'm wary of its potential to deceive and lead astray. Is there anything comparable in your world, Gemini? Something that feeds and inspires you, but only if you're discerning about it? This is a good time to ratchet up your discernment.

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Somewhere in the world is a tree that has been struck by lightning in such a way that the scorch marks reveal your initials. Locate that tree.

Somewhere in the world there is a treasure that has no value to anyone but you, and a secret that is meaningless to everyone except you, and a frontier that possesses a revelation only you know how to exploit. Go in search of those things.

Somewhere in the world there is a person who could ask you the precise question you need to hear in order to catalyze the next phase of your evolution. Do what's necessary to run into that person.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

I don't care whether you call it uncanny intuition or plain old telepathy: In the next three weeks, you will have unusually abundant access to that way of knowing. So please use it. Please call on it. It could steer you away from twisty wastes of time that don't serve your highest good. It might also allow you to ferret out disguised or hiding opportunities. There's one catch: If you don't believe in them, your psychic powers won't work as well as they can. So I suggest you set aside any dogmatic skepticism you might have about them and proceed on the hypothesis that they are very real.

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From the window of my office I look down on a blackberry bush whose berries are now ripening. In the last 20 minutes, I've watched a sparrow figure out the best way to feast. At first the bird tried to land on the flimsy branches of the bush, but after a few tries it realized they couldn't hold its weight. Its revised strategy was to grab a single berry in mid-swoop and alight on the branch of a nearby apple tree so it could relax with its meal. It did this 10 times.

Are you willing to collect your reward a little at a time? Explain how you will do it.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Leo (July 23-August 22)

Let's poke around to see if we can stir up some good trouble, Leo. The time is right. You're in need of a friendly disruption or two. Fortunately, I'm sensing there's a forbidden temptation that isn't so forbidden any longer . . . as well as a strange attractor you might find inspiring and a volatile teaching that would turn you inside-out in a good way. Are you willing to wander into a previously off-limits area? Hey, look. There's one of those mystery spots I was hinting about. I wonder what would happen if you pressed that green button. Go ahead. Don't be . . . Gaaaahhhhh! Unnhhh! Wha?! I mean WOW! That was very interesting. Try it again!

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Psychotherapists say it's not only naughty but counterproductive to blame others for your problems. A skilled practitioner urges her clients to accept responsibility for the part they've played in creating their predicaments. The reason is as much pragmatic as it is ethical: When you're obsessed with how people have done you wrong, you have little ambition to change the behavior in yourself that led you into the mess.

While I endorse this approach, I also know that dogmatic adherence to it can warp your mental health as much as any other form of fanaticism. That's why I urge you to enjoy an unapologetic Blame Fest.

Choose a time when you will find fault with everyone except yourself. Howl in protest at the unfair slights people have committed against you. Wallow in self­pity as you visualize the clueless jerks who have done you wrong. For best results, bark your complaints in the direction of no one but God, an inanimate object, or your mirror.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)

You may be prone to overreaction. You could be on the verge of uncorking an excessive response to a modest prompt. On a regular basis, you should ask yourself: "Are the feelings rising up in me truly appropriate for what's happening now? Or are they mostly the eruption of material that I repressed in the past?" I also encourage you to consider Hoare's Law of Large Problems, which says that inside every large problem is a small problem scrambling to get out. Be alert for the possibility that minor adjustments will work better than epic struggles.

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There's a three-mile stretch of Interstate 880 south of Oakland, California, that I call the Singing Highway. For reasons I don't understand, it generates low humming melodies every time I drive over it, similar to the guttural chants of Tibetan monks. Sometimes I swear I can even hear lyrics.

Once, as I was driving to the airport on the Singing Highway, I swear I heard the same lyric repeating over and over again: "a shortcut to the path with heart / a shortcut to the path with heart / a shortcut to the path with heart."

Where's the path with heart for you? What would it involve for you to take a shortcut to get on it?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

Temple Grandin is a successful autistic person. Diagnosed at an early age, she nevertheless went on to earn a PhD in Animal Science and became a bestselling author whose work has led to notable improvements in the humane treatment of livestock. Although she acknowledges that her autism has caused her problems, she also believes it gives her abilities that non-autistic people don't have. For example, her extreme sensitivity and extraordinary visual memory are at the root of her unique insights into the needs of animals. If there were an instant cure for her autism, she says, she wouldn't take it. She's an advocate of neurodiversity. Now here's my question for you, Libra: Do you have a supposed weakness or disability that's actually an inherent part of one of your special talents? Celebrate and cultivate it this week.

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Change the burned-out light bulb.
Water the plants.
Take your multi-vitamin.
Wash the dishes.
Put new batteries in the TV remote.
Bow down to the Great Mystery.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)

Self-help author Barbara De Angelis wrote a book that offers to help us learn "how to make love all the time." Maybe I'll read it someday, but right now I'm more interested in your take on the subject. How would you make love -- not have sex, but make love -- with your sandwich, with the music you listen to, with a vase of flowers, with the familiar strangers sitting in the cafe, with everything? Your expertise in this art is now at a peak.

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I know a dyke punk witch who loves to rub up against Hasidic Jews in the New York subway when she's menstruating. I know a mischief-maker who sneaked gobs of bacon fat into the broccoli and carrot stir-fry he cooked for his vegetarian friends.

While I'm entertained by the hijinks of these two tricksters, I have more respect for people who mess with their own totems and taboos -- like my anarchist acquaintance who disturbed his fellow agitators by burning his prized black flag in front of them.
Catch my drift? It's more aesthetically pleasing to violate your own damn dogmas, not your neighbor's. Try it.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)

It's not a good time to treat yourself like a beast of burden or to swamp yourself with dark, heavy thoughts. You're extra sensitive, Sagittarius -- as delicate and impressionable as a young poet in love with a dream of paradise. You need heaping doses of sweetness and unreasonable amounts of fluidic peace, smart listening, and radical empathy. If you can't get people to buoy your spirits and slip you delightful presents, do those things for yourself.

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Tantric sex practitioners say an artful lover never makes love the same way twice.

Similarly, chanteuse Billie Holiday believed a good singer should never sing a song the same way twice. If you use all the same phrasing and melody, she said, you're failing your art.

The only Zen master we know -- whose name we can't tell you because she changes it every week, and we haven't heard the latest one—likes to quote the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you."

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has the last word: "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible."
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

In some of the newspapers that publish my horoscope column, my carefully wrought text is buried in the back pages amidst a jabbering hubbub of obscene advertisements for quasi-legal sexual services. For readers with refined sensibilities, that's a problem. They do their best to avert their eyes, narrowing their focus down to a tight window. I think you'll be wise to adopt a similar approach in the coming week, Capricorn. Only a small percentage of information coming your way will be truly useful to you, and it may often be embedded in a sparkly mess of distracting noise. Concentrate hard on getting just the essentials that you want so you won't be misinformed and worn out by the rest.

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Nothing primes your ecstatic skill better than invoking and expressing thanks. So consider the possibility of celebrating regular Gratitude Fests. During these orgies of appreciation, you could confer praise and respect on the creatures, both human and otherwise, that have played seminal roles in inspiring you to become yourself. Who teaches and helps you? Who sees you for who you really are? Who nudges you in the direction of your fuller destiny and awakens you to your signature truths? Who loves you brilliantly?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18)

Do your own stunts, Aquarius. Don't commandeer a stunt double to do them for you. Accept blame and claim credit that rightfully belong to you. Don't scare up scapegoats or tolerate plagiarists. It will also be a good idea to deliver your own messages and sing your own songs and kick your own butt. No surrogates or stand-ins, please. There's just no way, you see, for you to get to where you need to go by having a substitute do the traveling for you. Your only hope of claiming the reward that will be crucial for the next chapter of your life story will be to do the work yourself.

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Jungian analyst Arnold Mindell explores the relationship between mind and body. He thinks you can achieve optimal physical health if you're devoted to shedding outworn self-images. In his book The Shaman's Body, he says, "You have one central lesson to learn -- to continuously drop all your rigid identities. Personal history may be your greatest danger."

Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, agrees. Raised as a boy, she later became a woman, but ultimately renounced gender altogether. "I love being without an identity," she says. "It gives me a lot of room to play around."

What identities would be healthy, even ecstatic, for you to lose? Describe the fun you'd have if you were free of them.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

One of the best new bands of 2009 was the Girls. Spin magazine selected their debut CD Album as the fifth best album of the year. After touring for months and selling scads of records, the band came back home to San Francisco in February to do a sold-out show at the Great American Music Hall. For his on-stage apparel, lead singer Christopher Owens wore baggy orange flannel pajama bottoms and a rumpled green flannel shirt, proving that his new-found fame had not rendered him self-important or excessively dignified. I nominate Owens as your role model this week, Pisces. I'd like to see you move on up toward the next level in your chosen field of endeavor, even as you remain perfectly comfortable, full of casual grace, and at home in your excellence.

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I swear the strange woman standing near me at Los Angeles' Getty Museum was having an erotic experience as she gazed upon van Gogh's Irises. She was not touching herself, nor was anyone else. But she was apparently experiencing waves of convulsive delight, as suggested by her rapid breathing, shivering muscles, fluttering eyelids, and sweaty forehead.

Fifteen minutes later, I saw her again in front of Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Fountain of Love. She was only slightly more composed. In a friendly voice, I said, "This stuff really moves you, doesn't it?" "Oh, yeah," she replied, "I've not only learned how to make love with actual flowers and clouds and fountains, I can even make love with paintings of them."

Do you have any interest in mastering the method in this maestro's madness? Where will you begin?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia:How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.